KaiZie - Dark Elf Painting Blog

[KaiZie]

So here we are, a new book and a new army for me, as I'm sure a lot of you.

I thought I'd start this little painting blog/project diary to share with you my hobby, as to keep a visual record for myself. So here goes!

Lets start off with my first ever box of Dark Elves. I went for a core box, which seemed pretty sensible.


I thought it might be worth giving you guys an idea of what's in the box. I was really impressed with the transfer sheet. I must confess, I do enjoy using transfers and I think I;ve cracked a good way to make them look great, but more on that at a later date.


Note to everyone out there, NEVER LET YOUR BLADE GET A BEATEN UP AS MINE! The blade on the left has been in service for well over a year, how it got black I don't know!


Never the less I got busy and built up the unit. I went for crossbows as all my other Fantasy armies have been Melee based, Warriors of Chaos and Vampire Counts.

The kit in itself was not what I'm used to. As many of you would have found out, the arms only go in one way, the heads are already sculpted to the body, it was all a bit strange. The reason for this that I can see, is so that they rank up easier. I'm sure we've all had it in the past where you've built some really cool, dynamic minis for your big block and realised that they don't rank up at all. I know I have. As far as I can see, the limited modelling of these guys mitigates that.


ANd here's a better picture of the Unit Champion and a few arm variants.


Top points of this kit;
1)Easy to build, I mean, really easy.
2)No ugly joint lines anywhere at all! Beautiful.
3)I thought the transfer sheet was very well presented with every major city covered with enough to get every mini something.

Low points;
1)Limited customisation options.
2)The head spike is a bit fiddly to clean up. Where it joins to the sprue is right in the middle on the thinnest part. Nearly lost a finger a few times trying to clen them up.
3)Not a fan of the way the Champions sword arm sits with the crossbow. Easily fixed with a bit of chopping and some green stuff but I wanted to go right out of the box on this one.

Right, that's all for this one. Many more to follow.

Until next time!

-KaiZie

[Bigred]

Did you get a Kharibdyss/Kraken kit?

I really want to see one of those built...

[KaiZie]

Once These guys are done, he will be my reward. I like to paint in bits like that. Do some chaff, then something cool, 10 more chaff, something cool and so on. It helps me to focus my efforts more and it makes those 40 crossbowmen fly by knowing that after 10, I get to work on something more satifying

[angrybear]

I am going to follow this, someday soon I will start with my dark elf force. I really like the crossbowmen.

[KaiZie]

Glad to hear it AngryBear. By the end of this week I will be throwing up my WIP on how they are getting on. Im really impressed with how they are looking actually. If I manage to get a few solid hours at my desk I don't see why I shouldn't have them done this week....assuming nothing silly happens between now and Friday

[KaiZie]

Here we go, some Midweek hobby has occured!

SO, for these guys, and the army as a whole, I've decided to go with a Khanite force, forcusing on Har Ganeth. Colours wise, this to me looks like a lot of deep reds and gold. To that end, I set about how to paint my first ever unit of Dark Elves.

Flicking through White Dwarf gave me some great ideas and I actually decided to use the "How to Paint" as a guideline and build from there.

Here's what I have so far.

I threw down Cadian Fleshtone for the basis of the skin and went from there. I started with the skin first because it's the deepest part of the model (the face) and if I don't do it first, I'll struggle later on.

Next I hit the armour hard with a thin edge line of Khorne Red. I haven't painted like this in a long long time so it was definately a challenge for me to keep it neat.

Then, the skin was hit with reikland fleshshade, followed by Kislev flesh and reikland again to tie it together. Taking advice from WD, i spot highlighted the Khorne red with cadian fleshtone, which brings us up to this point.

Next I'll be adding a Bloodletter glaze over the armour to tie the black into the red and tone the highlights into the red. Wish me luck!

Unit next time,

- KaiZie

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Looking very nice so far, that's also a colour scheme I really like. I'll be doing mine more overtly red. Looking forward to the next steps!

[KaiZie]

The aim is to have them completed by Friday Night! Game on!

There isn't much left really. Bit of silver and gold, highlights here and there. I'm trying to keep the core stuff fairly simple to paint becuase I've fallen foul many-a-time to over complicating rank and file and find myself 30 hours into an army and only 10 blokes to show for it

[angrybear]

Nice beginning, a shame I don't have a steady hand to paint lines like that Are you planning to use many witches considering your theme?

[KaiZie]

Yes, eventually. I'm slowly building up a list of "Whats Up next" which currently looks like (after these RXB's) a Kahrybdyss, followed by 10 more RXB's and then a scourge runner, though that maybe replaced with Witches, or slot in before 10 more RXB's